


forget the greater good

by calerine



Category: Johnny's WEST
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-08 18:08:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11087100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calerine/pseuds/calerine
Summary: Taisho Era AU. Equality is not worth losing the men Hamada loves.





	forget the greater good

**Author's Note:**

> During the Taisho era (1912-1926), Japanese authorities tried to suppress communist thought and a lot of university students who were active in this area were caught in the crossfire.

The fifth time is the final straw.  
  
By then Hamada is used to the length of their absences, followed by the call coming at work like a dreaded full-stop at the end of a miserable line.  
  
The secretary’s concerned face pokes through the ajar door. Her voice raises in both question and to reach above the furious click-clacking of typewriters.  
  
_Call for you, Hamada-san?_ She says, leaving it there.  
  
The sinking of his heart fills in the blanks.  
  
//  
  
Akito is black and blue under his shirts when Hamada finally peels them away from his body.  
  
“What did they do this time,” he lets slip under his breath. It’s hard to think right, especially when Akito is in so much pain he couldn’t even take off his own shoes, stumbling into their genkan just now and falling to his knees with a sob. Hamada had to prop him up as gently as he could, listen to his lungs wheeze and rattle, while Junta undid his shoelaces and pulled them from his feet.  
  
Across the room, Junta is dosing a cut on his face in alcohol, hissing quietly at the sting.  
  
“They locked us up separately,” Junta supplies. His voice is low, a hard edge to it that Hamada is used to now. It used to be rarer phenomenon; these stone eyes and his gritted teeth. “They can’t do anything to me because of Father - but Akito --” his voice cracks, fists curling into white knuckles.  
  
On the bed, Akito stirs at his name, fingers finding Hamada’s across the sheets.  
  
“Sorry you had to come get us again,” he murmurs in a sandpapered version of his voice, any hint of warmth ground down into dust. Hamada tangles their hands together, and the bridge of his nose tightens when Akito squeezes weakly.  
  
“You guys…” He bites back a sigh.  
  
They have been through this countless times. Hamada may not be a man of theory but he understands goodness when he sees it. Their ideals and fervent hope for a better future. _Equality_ , Junta has said more than once, rights for every worker, his eyes blazing in the flickering shadows of candlelight, and Hamada _understands_. He really, really does. Back in his hometown, he’d seen more than his fair share of rich landowners bullying poor farmers who tilled their land and made it fruitful. But Japan has so many university students; _they_ can fight for socialism, _they_ can be bundled into vehicles at rallies and be starved for days in stone-walled cells, _they_ can be picked up by the ones who love them, when their bodies are mottled by purple ribs and split lips.  
  
Hamada can deal with inequality if the men he loves will be safe and soft and asleep in their too-small bed at the end of the day.  
  
But he says none of the things on his tongue, sick of picking fights with Junta, sick of the stricken look on Akito’s face when he gets caught between them.  
  
“How are you feeling?” He asks Akito instead, bending to press a tender kiss to a yellowing bruise on his shoulder from weeks ago, and has to grit his teeth when Akito swallows thickly before speaking.  
  
“Right as rain,” and Hamada hides the heat of his tears in these unnecessary bruises as fingers thread gently through his hair.

  
//

  
In the morning, Hamada wakes up to a grey dawn.  
  
He fumbles for his watch on their bedside table and grabs for Junta’s instead. The bed is empty and he finds them in their tiny kitchen, Junta sipping coffee with swollen lips and Akito leaning stiffly against the sink.  
  
Hamada sits heavily in his chair, words like gum stuck in his teeth. He watches them in their half-wakefulness, the familiarity of this routine and the incongruity in the taut way Akito holds himself up while he stacks wet dishes on the drying rack, his squared shoulders and this inching gait. Hamada has to resist the urge to tell him to sit down.  
  
“I can’t live like this anymore,” he blurts out and later, he will blame the early hour for his tactlessness, even though he has never been good at saying the right things at any of the right times. Bunichi used to teased him for it.  
  
“Like what?” Junta says. Behind him, Akito has turned the tap off.  
  
The world drops off into quietness. It almost stuns Hamada into silence.  
  
“I can’t - I can’t go on not knowing if when I leave the house in the morning, if it’ll be the last time I see you, if I’ll have to bury you the next day.” He heaves a gasping breath, and the volume of it startles him. “I’m your _lover_ , not your _father_.” This time he doesn’t hide his tears, but he doesn’t meet their eyes either, terrified of everything that could happen. The wrenching of his heart burns tracks down his cheeks, hot salt on heated skin.  
  
Junta’s voice shakes when he says, “what do you want us to do then?”  
  
_Don’t go; let someone else live and die for the nation._ Hamada’s tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth, as if to say it has had enough revolutions for the day even though it’s only eight in the morning and Hamada has barely rubbed the sleep from his eyes.  
  
There is a pause before Akito’s hoarse voice, uncertainty undercut by strength, slices through the pregnant pause.  
  
“Not _us_ ,” he corrects, and Junta swivels to look at him sharply, gaping.  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“I’m done,” he says, even though he is still unsteady on his feet, drying his hands on an old rag that was once Junta’s shirt. His voice doesn’t tremble. “My brother didn’t send me to university just so he can pay for a funeral, too.”  
  
“Are you okay with this then.” Junta isn’t looking at Hamada now, his arms crossed and his voice accusing. It’s not fair, Hamada thinks, while his eyes follow the angles of Junta’s jawline and finds it hard not to think about all the times he’s traced its lines with his lips and found its shape in the palm of his hand, and how, perhaps last week was the last time he will ever be allowed to do that.  
  
Akito’s eyes flicker to Hamada’s and he sees the same torn look that has become too familiar, and he finds himself blurting out, “There are other university students in Japan, Junta-kun. Let them -”  
  
“Stay out of this, Hama-chan.” Hamada’s heart takes the hit before his mind can register the words.  
  
In a single moment, Akito, eyes widened, mouth twisted into an ugly line, makes to stride forward when his right leg gives under him. He makes a surprised, pained sound, a hand flying out to grab onto the back of a chair, and Hamada’s halfway out of his seat before he realises this is not the time.  
  
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Akito spits out between clenched teeth. The sight of his scratched knuckles makes Hamada’s heart hurt. This entire morning makes his heart hurt. His throat feels so swollen even though it can’t be; he wasn’t the one who was locked away for days.  
  
The world seems condensed into the width of the dining table, between Junta’s gritted teeth and Akito’s clenched fist.  
  
If he could stand, Hamada knows Akito would have leapt across the room for Junta’s throat.  
  
“What, you think _this_ is worth more than the greater good?” Junta’s tone is challenging, purposely aggravating and Hamada suddenly remembers all the times he and Akito used to fight before Hamada started putting himself in between them.  
  
“ _Your_ greater good, Junta-kun, _your_ greater good isn’t the one working at a job he hates to get me through school, _your_ greater good isn’t the one worrying himself sick every time we get arrested, or coming to get us no matter how close to death we are - oh sorry, I mean _I am_ \- because you’re _Nakama Junta_ and you are such a martyr for giving up your father’s money that you can’t even see how other people still grovel at your feet!”  
  
“I thought you said you didn’t care about that?” Junta’s gotten to his feet now, nearly yelling now, strained voice to strained voice, red face to red face.  
  
“You’re so fucking selfish, you always have been - don’t you give a fuck about the people actually around you?” Akito’s struggling to catch his breath, his fist wrapping around the edge of the kitchen sink to keep himself upright.  
  
There are heaving chests but Hamada’s feels empty, wrecked of every feeling but this sense of impending doom.  
  
The tension pulls taut between the two of them, between gritted teeth that feels like it could turn into another outburst until Junta is grabbing his coat from the rack, movements jerky and uncontrolled with the force of his rage.  
  
“If this is the way things are, then I’m done.” He mutters, shoving his feet into his shoes.  
  
“Junta-kun, _please_ -” Hamada starts, then realises immediately he doesn’t know what to say. This has been brewing for months, and they all know there are only two routes things can take now.  
  
“Trust me when I say you were done a long time ago,” Akito retorts, bitter.  
  
Hand on the doorknob, Junta turns back for a second to meet Hamada’s eyes. His anger slips for a single moment, morphs into an uncertainty that seems altogether unfitting on Junta’s face. Then, Hamada manages to take two steps before the front door slams, and he’s a gust of cold wind and an empty genkan.  
  
“Hama-chan,” When he turns, Akito’s frozen to the spot, hands still strung out between sink and chair, his shoulders hunched and horrorstruck. “Oh _shit_ , fuck, I shouldn’t have said any of those things, shit -”  
  
Hamada goes to him now, because he was the one who started all of this, and this is all he can do. Peel Akito’s swollen fingers gently from wood and metal, and hold his shaking hands.  
  
When he rests them over Hamada’s heart, his rabbiting pulse feels like an earthquake.

**Author's Note:**

> When I sent this to C, she was like WHY ARE TAISHO BOYFRIENDS ALWAYS SO SAD I WANT A HAPPYISH ENDING so I quickficced this ending for her. (You can choose to ignore it!)
> 
> i guess junta will come back late that night and hamachan and akito will have had a a Tumultuous day akito would have made hamachan gone to work even tho he's like dying and hamachan won't have any off-days from all the time he's taken to pick up his dumb boyfriends so he'll go and spend his day like wringing his hands internally FOREVER maybe junta will go find him during his lunch break and they'll have a Chat like adults and akito would have been at home, maybe he would have tried reading or drawing or cooking or something but nothing really worked out and he would find himself pacing around the apartment listlessly or like hobbling and he'll think about going for a walk but he can barely walk so idk he makes dinner for 3 and listens to the radio until hamachan gets back and when the door opens, he's like in this shaft of light coming in and he looks super hopeful bc he thinks it's junta but it's just hamachan but hamachan's like i talked to junta and you both are dumb but he's coming back tonight and you guys can talk then
> 
> and then they eat the dinner together with the radio on in the background and at first it's silent because they're both thinking about junta but they're also akito and hamachan so things just fall into a familiar rhythm tho there's this anxiety in the air but they don't mention it and they do the dishes together and keep a portion on the table and akito tries to read again but it doesn't work again so hamachan reads to him until he kind of falls asleep
> 
> and then when junta gets back it's already late and they're both like half asleep already but they kind of both leap up and hamachan's like uh uh uh i'M GOING TO BRUSH MY TEETH aND GO TO BED i guESS???
> 
> and junta looks like he would laugh if he weren't so tired and hamachan goes to bed and he just watches the light coming through under the bedroom door and listens to their low voices until he falls asleep
> 
> and in the morning they're both in bed with him squished in the middle with akito's arm around his waist and junta drooling a little on his chest
> 
> then they sort it out and akito stops being a communist and junta is still one but he goes to less protests and also stops attending the secret communist newspaper meetings at uni because police busts always happen
> 
> he just rants about communism at home a lot i guESS and junta has many feelings about if he did the right thing and it happens for a long time
> 
> but i guess he figures it out bc he's a smart boy


End file.
